Somehow, this painting looks freezing cold even though there is no snow visible. If you can zoom in, there are ice crystal patterns that formed around the incredible moon-glow effect. I used a greater variety of colours in the sky than usual, starting with the warm-beige outline of the moon, then blending it into successive layers of violet, dark violet, blue and near black. The pigments used were indo blue (PB60), magenta purple (PV55), phthalo green (PG7) and pyrol orange (PO73). The moon halo was pyrol orange with some brown mix probably yellow ochre with red ochre (PY43, PR101). In some ways, the cold weather and salt water made painting the sky a bit easier because it was moist the whole time and I could make some really detailed colour shifts, along with the star details and moon glow. The building had a few lights on in the windows, those hard working administrators were at again late on Friday. When I saw this scene I knew it was amazing but I was exhausted, cold and hungry, then after getting just about half way off campus I turned around and went back to make the painting, and I am glad that I did make the extra effort because the moon effect is fantastic. At least, it looks just like when I was there. With the weekend finally here maybe I can make some blue sky paintings down at the canal hopefully.
Three quarter moon over campus, watercolour 5 x 7" cold press, January 2025
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